this incident took place on the very frontiers of Granada, or the benevolence of the soldier would hardly have been proof against the trouble his little charge occasioned him. Toiling up the mountains on their return to the kingdom of Jaen, they entered the little town of Alcala-la-Real, where on the side of the mountainous road rose the walls of a monastery. "How better," thought the soldier, "save the soul of this boy than by giving him to the monks?" It was not perhaps the present they would most readily have selected, but compassion and piety forbade them to refuse it: the little Moor became a Christian by the name of Hernan, and was brought up within the sacred precincts of the convent. Though the monks were able to make a zealous Catholic of their nursling, they did not succeed so well in taming his fiery spirit, nor could they induce him to devote himself to the inactive and mortifying life of a priest. Yet he was generous and daring, and thus acquired their affection; next to being a recluse vowed to God, the vocation of a soldier for the faith, in the eyes of these holy men, was to be selected. Hernan advancing in life, and shooting up into strong and premature manhood, was recommended by the Abbot to his cousin, the illustrious Don Rodrigo Ponce de Leon, Marquess of Cadiz. He fought several times under his banners, and in the year 1471 entered with him the kingdom of Granada, and was wounded at the taking of Cardela. In this last action it was, that a sudden horror of taking up arms against his countrymen sprung up in Hernan's breast. He quitted Spain in consequence; and, visiting Lisbon, he was led to embrace a sea-faring life, and entered the marine service of the king of Portugal; at one time visiting Holland, where he sought and won the hand of Madeline: and afterwards, with Bartholomew Diaz, he made one of the crew that discovered the Cape of Good Hope. He sailed with three vessels, one of which lost company of the others, and its crew underwent various and dreadful perils at sea, and from the blacks on land: after nine months they again fell in with their companions, three sailors only remaining. One of these was Hernan de Faro; his skill, valour, and fortitude had saved the vessel; he was exalted to its command, and now, in safer voyage over seas more known, he had freighted it with the fugitives from Tournay.
During all his wanderings, even in the gay and rich Portugal, Hernan turned with fond regret to his mountain home. To its rugged peaks, its deep and silent dells; its torrents, its verdure, its straggling and precipitous paths; its prospect over the rich and laughing Vega of Granada. He had promised himself, after weary toils, a long repose in this beloved spot; and hither he now led his wife, resolving to set up his tent for ever in the land of his childhood, his happy childhood. It was a strange place to choose, bordering on Granada, which at that time was as lists in which Death and Havock sat umpires. But the situation of Alcala-la-Real preserved it secure, notwithstanding its dangerous neighbourhood. It was perched high upon the mountain, overlooking a plain which had been for many years the scene of ruthless carnage and devastation, being in itself an asylum for fugitives—a place of rest for the victor—an eagle's nest, unassailable by the vultures of the plain.
Here then Plantagenet found his cousin; here in lovely and romantic Spain. Though defaced and torn by war, Andalusia presented an aspect of rich and various beauty, intoxicating to one whose life had been spent in the plains of England, or the dull flats of Flanders. The purple vineyards; the olive plantations clothing the burning hill-side; the groves of mulberry, cork, pomegranate, and citron, that diversified the fertile vegas or plains; the sweet flowing rivers, with their banks adorned by scarlet geranium and odoriferous myrtle, made this spot Nature's own favoured garden, a paradise unequalled upon earth. On such a scene did the mountainhome of the exiles look down. Alcala too had beauties of her own. Ilex and pine woods clothed the defiles of the rugged Sierra, which stretched far and wide, torn by winter torrents into vast ravines; variegated by a thousand intersecting lines, formed by the foldings of the hills; the clouds found a home on the lofty summits; the wandering mists crept along the abrupt precipices; alternate light and shadow, rich in purple and golden hues, arrayed each rocky peak or verdant slope in radiance all their own.
All this fair land had been under the dominion of the Moors. Now, town by town, stronghold by stronghold, they had lost it; the riches of the land belonged to the Christians, who still, by military conquest or policy, pressed the realm of the Moorish sovereign into a narrower compass; while, divided in itself, the unhappy kingdom fell piecemeal into their hands. De Faro was a devout Catholic; but, with all his intrepidity, more humanity than belonged to that age, warmed his manly heart. He remembered that he was a Moor: whenever he saw a Moslem prisoner in chains, or a cavalgada of hapless women driven from their native towns to slavery, the blood in his veins moved with instinctive horror; and the idea that among them might pine and groan his parents, his own relatives, burned like living coal in his breast. He had half forgotten this, when he came to Alcala, bringing his wife and child, and resolved to set up here his home; but when, in the succeeding spring, the Spanish army assembled on the frontiers of Murcia, and swept on towards the south; when deeds of Moorish valour and Moorish suffering reached Alcala, when the triumph of the Christians and their ravages were repeated, the gallant mariner could endure no longer. "It is a fruitless struggle," he said, "Granada must fall, and God, who searches hearts, knows that his victory will be dear to me when the cross floats from the towers of the Alhambra. But I cannot behold the dark, blood-stained advances of the invader. I will go—go where man destroys not his brother, where the wild winds and waves are the armies we combat. In a year or two, every sword will be sheathed; the peace of conquest will reign over Andalusia. One other voyage; and I return."
He went without fear, for Alcala appeared a safe retreat, and left his family spectators of the war. What a school for Richard! Edmund rejoiced that he would be accomplished in knightly exercise in the land of chivalry; but he was not prepared for the warlike enthusiasm that sprung up in his cousin's heart, and even in his own. It was the cause of God that armed the gentlemen of Spain, that put daring into the politic Ferdinand's heart, and inspired with martial ardour the magnaminous Isabella. The veteran Cavaliers had lost many relatives and companions in arms, in various defeats under the rocky castles, or within the pathless defiles of Andalusia; and holy zeal possessed them, to avenge their deaths, or to deliver those who pined in bondage. The younger knights, under the eye of their sovereigns, emulated each other in gallantry and glory. They painted war with pomp, and adorned it by their virtues.
Not many months before, the Earl of Rivers, with a band of Englishmen, aided at the siege of Loxa, and distinguished himself by his undaunted bravery; his blunt but gay humour; his eager emulation with the Spanish commanders. The Duke of York heard, with a leaping heart, his mother's brother's name. Had he still been there—but no, he had returned to fall in affray in Britanny, the victim of Tudor's heartless desertion—this circumstance had given distinction and honour to the name of Englishman, nor did Edmund feel inclined to lower the national character by keeping away from the scene of glory. What was to be done? York was a mere boy; yet, when Plantagenet spoke of serving under one of the illustrious Catholic chieftains, York said, "I follow you: I will be your squire, your page, your stirrup-boy; but I follow!"
In 1489 the siege of Baza was formed.—It was defended with desperate valour by the Moors, while every noble Spaniard, capable of bearing arms, assembled in Ferdinand's camp, which glittered in silks and gay caparisons, yet the very luxury of the warriors was ennobled by their valour. The sallies on the part of the besieged were furious; the repulse they sustained, determined and successful. When closely hemmed in, the Moors relaxed in their desperate efforts; the younger Christian cavaliers used the leisure so afforded them, to unite in making incursions in the surrounding country, to cut off supplies, and to surprise the foraging parties of the enemy. Two youths became conspicuous in these exploits; both proclaimed their English origin. One bore a knight's golden spurs (Edmund had been knighted on the eve of the battle of Stoke by the Earl of Lincoln), and boasted of his royal, through illegitimate, descent; the other, a beardless, fairhaired, blooming boy, was nameless, save by the Christian appellation of Ricardo, to which was added the further designation of el Muchacho, from his extreme youth. It was a lovely, yet an awful sight, to behold this pair. The elder, whose dark eyes and dun complexion gave him a greater resemblance to his Southern comrades, never lost sight of his young friend; side by side, his shield before Richard's breast, they went to the field. When Edmund would otherwise have pressed forward he hung back to guard his cousin; and when the boy was hurried forward in the ardour of fight, still his kinsman's gaze was on him—his sword protecting him in every aspect of danger. If the stripling were attacked, Edmund's eyes flashed fire, and mortal